NHL revenue projections/cap likely to be revised downward

[cliffclaven]

Attendance is down? Hmmm.

 

[Madifer]

The league is being a disaster in marketing. Its that simple and its whoever is in charge of marketing should be blamed.

I have always liked hockey and always thought it was a sport which only real men play. The vanilla state of the NHL is a sad new development. Also the idea that someone may sue the league for sustained injuries is very absurd as well

 

[Karl Eriksson]

Canada counts outsourcing your $70K a year job to China or Mexico and forcing you to work 2 $30K a year jobs instead as “job growth”

Didn’t say there was job growth. Wage growth (outpaced inflation in 2018) and GDP growth (2%). Economy is at full potential here and almost in the US. If league revenues aren’t growing its a league story not an economic or financial one.

 

[Huck Cheever]

Perfect time for Toronto to be in cap hell

 

[MadLuke]

Hard to believe with economic growth numbers as high as they are in Canada and Moreso the US. Record low unemployment, wage growth etc. FX issues only impact 7 teams.

Not so hard to believe that TV revenues are not growing much, even for live event like pro league sports.

Regular season NHL fanbases is getting quite old and will probably decline:
Going gray: Sports TV viewers skew older

Apparently the median TV viewers age for the NHL went from 33 in 2000 to 49 in 2016.

The % of the fanbase that is aged 2-17 lost 50%, from 16% to 8%, the decline could be ugly when the current 50-65 will stop being interesting for the advertiser.

 

[flamesforcup]

Hard to believe with economic growth numbers as high as they are in Canada and Moreso the US. Record low unemployment, wage growth etc. FX issues only impact 7 teams.

These modern day "job growth" stats are so misleading. Inflation is high, cost of living is high, inequality is high, wages are at an all time low, debt is insanely high. Why would people spend 300$ to go watch a hockey game.

When people are forced to work 2 jobs i guess u can say there are more jobs being created

 

[flamesforcup]

Didn’t say there was job growth. Wage growth (outpaced inflation in 2018) and GDP growth (2%). Economy is at full potential here and almost in the US. If league revenues aren’t growing its a league story not an economic or financial one.

Does the wage growth include the top 1% earners? If so it can be misleading.

 

[MadLuke]

These modern day "job growth" stats are so misleading. Inflation is high, cost of living is high, inequality is high, wages are at an all time low, debt is insanely high. Why would people spend 300$ to go watch a hockey game.

When people are forced to work 2 jobs i guess u can say there are more jobs being created

We could hard with the validity/accuracy of the inflation numbers, but
Inflation is historically low (under really good control since the early 90s, not sure we ever had a so nice 25 nearly 30 year's in inflation/deflation management ever):

Wage are certainly not in a high time low level (otherwise we would be poorer than people during the 20s,30s).

real wage estimate (adjusted by the consumer price index):

Look at the average house size people buy statistic:

People house more than doubles in size both in the US and Canada since the 60s, even while there is less and less people living in them.

 

[MadLuke]

Does the wage growth include the top 1% earners? If so it can be misleading.

You can have them by break down, for the US for example between 2017-2018:

adjusted for life cost, the 1% declined in 2017 vs 2016, the highest growth (more than 4% adjusted) were for the (if 1% if the poorest, 99 the richest):
4, 48, 52, 55 percentiles

 

[Revelation]

It's almost as if people don't watch a p***yfied version of the sport where Bettman and Parros vindictively suspend physical players they don't like for dozens of games.

 

[cliffclaven]

It's almost as if people don't watch a *****fied version of the sport where Bettman and Parros vindictively suspend physical players they don't like for dozens of games.

I have said in other threads.. the casual fan in the U.S. likes hits, scrums, fights, and lastly, goals. Many of the posters here are Canadian. They grew up playing and watching the game. They know the rules and how difficult it is to skate and score like the current players... most of the fans in the US have heard of Gretzky, messier, and Lemieux/jagr. I’m a hockey fan, and I had no clue who Matthews was until he was drafted, basically. Same with dahlin. If some team would’ve drafted someone named Stu “the grim reaper” Grimson? Different story here. That’s just how it is. The current product of euro players, suspending players for hits, and little or no fights, will not sell here. Along with Florida, Carolina and Arizona hemmoraging money, it doesn’t help that the hawks are garbage and Pittsburgh isn’t much better.

When I went to Iowa stars/chops/wild games, I would take friends that had no idea about the game.. every stoppage they asked “what happened?” And I would have to explain. Mostly sat there on their phones or bsing about whatever, and the only excitement was a hit, fight, scrum, or goal.

 

[Revelation]

I have said in other threads.. the casual fan in the U.S. likes hits, scrums, fights, and lastly, goals. Many of the posters here are Canadian. They grew up playing and watching the game. They know the rules and how difficult it is to skate and score like the current players... most of the fans in the US have heard of Gretzky, messier, and Lemieux/jagr. I’m a hockey fan, and I had no clue who Matthews was until he was drafted, basically. Same with dahlin. If some team would’ve drafted someone named Stu “the grim reaper” Grimson? Different story here. That’s just how it is. The current product of euro players, suspending players for hits, and little or no fights, will not sell here. Along with Florida, Carolina and Arizona hemmoraging money, it doesn’t help that the hawks are garbage and Pittsburgh isn’t much better.

When I went to Iowa stars/chops/wild games, I would take friends that had no idea about the game.. every stoppage they asked “what happened?” And I would have to explain. Mostly sat there on their phones or bsing about whatever, and the only excitement was a hit, fight, scrum, or goal.

Them breaking up 80% of fights before they start (like Rask-Howard or whatever the last goalie fight that almost happened) deflates tons of games, you can hear it in the crowd even from the TV. It's like they went to a Dana White seminar and decided to do the exact opposite. Also effectively making elbowing/slewfoots/spearing the new standards of physical play since those are not suspendable whereas any shoulder hit potentially is for god knows how long.

I don't mind it, makes easier for Ovechkin to score and the NHL can rot and die after he breaks Gretzky's record and retires.

 

[cliffclaven]

Them breaking up 80% of fights before they start (like Rask-Howard or whatever the last goalie fight that almost happened) deflates tons of games, you can hear it in the crowd even from the TV. It's like they went to a Dana White seminar and decided to do the exact opposite. Also effectively making elbowing/slewfoots/spearing the new standards physical play since those are not suspendable whereas any shoulder hit potentially is for god knows how long.

I don't mind it, makes easier for Ovechkin to score and the NHL can rot and die after he breaks Gretzky's record and retires.

Like the peluso/lucic tilt the other night. Lol. It was a joke, but I’ve seen a few articles online saying it was a “heavyweight” tilt. I guess it is, now.

 

[Pens x]

And this is why Quebec City isn’t getting another team

 

[Revelation]

Like the peluso/lucic tilt the other night. Lol. It was a joke, but I’ve seen a few articles online saying it was a “heavyweight” tilt. I guess it is, now.

When Ryan Reaves is the lion in the jungle you know the jungle is a manicured lawn.

 

[cliffclaven]

When Ryan Reaves is the lion in the jungle you know the jungle is a manicured lawn.

Reaves/probert or grimson, mcsorley, semenko, laraque, twist, etc? Lol. The “lion” would’ve gotten destroyed.

 

[Frosty415]

hard to believe that there will be another lockout soon

 

[SupremeNachos]

Hard to believe with economic growth numbers as high as they are in Canada and Moreso the US. Record low unemployment, wage growth etc. FX issues only impact 7 teams.

That term does not exist in the US right now.

 

[AustonsNostrils]

Salaries skyrocketing, cap goes down.

What a healthy league.

I don't see this as unhealthy - first the cap isn't going down, the article is saying that the cap when the numbers are in won't go up as much as Bettman just projected. What's happening with skyrocketing salaries is that the NHL's middle class of players are being squeezed, a team's star/core players will take more of the pie and you'll have half your team on cheap ELC's and $1-2M AAV contracts. Only moronic GM's will keep signing UFA's like JVR and Okposo/Eriksson/Ladd to $6-7M contracts for what they've produced in prior seasons. Older players are washing out the league earlier and it's going to be a trend.

 

[AustonsNostrils]

ALL pro sports leagues will be declining both attendance and TV wise. Technology is changing society, especially for kids and young adults, so many options to choose from to do with their free time. NHL owners aren't dumb, several of them have invested in E-Sports already. Everything today is 'NICHE', music becomes more and more niche, TV/Movies the same, video games, books, restaurants/food - niche means smaller slices of the pie for almost everything.

Wait until the sexbots arrive.

 

[SecretOilersFan]

ALL pro sports leagues will be declining both attendance and TV wise. Technology is changing society, especially for kids and young adults, so many options to choose from to do with their free time. NHL owners aren't dumb, several of them have invested in E-Sports already. Everything today is 'NICHE', music becomes more and more niche, TV/Movies the same, video games, books, restaurants/food - niche means smaller slices of the pie for almost everything.

Wait until the sexbots arrive.

Yeah its going to be really interesting in the next few decades tons of traditional forms of media are going to be under the gun.

 

[golffuul]

The relevant number that is not being stated, here, is the CAD to USD exchange rate, since all Canadian teams have to pay their players in USD. The CAD is the weakest it’s been since, you guessed it, when Winnipeg and Quebec lost their teams. With Calgary and Ottawa dealing with big financial problems and struggling ticket sales, and with only 5 teams posting consistent sellouts...there is a lot of worry about how much teams have to "make whole" before realizing revenues, even if revenues have increased outside of ticket sales.

So I give more than a grain of salt to the TVA story and will be very interested to see what the projection looks like, later on in the season.

 

[JetsFan815]

The original reporting of the 83.5 million cap by multiple credible NHL reporters was based on conversations they had at BoG meetings with the top league officials. I am inclined to put more weight in that than this random report.

 

[libertarian]

Awesome! Would love to see teams who overpay their young stars struggle to keep their soon to be RFA.

I think that the teams that have great young RFA's would rather not over pay them if they could. If the Cap does not move up much then teams that have drafted well will be penalized for their success.

 

[Semantics]

This is the only source I have seen claiming this.

I feel like this is true, every major reporter would be talking about it, yet, crickets.

So I'm Skeptical for now. Doesn't make sense that last week the NHL projected 83M. It's not like they didn't know the lower Canadian $ and what revenues were at then

The NHL's numbers would be based on projections extrapolated using recent growth rates. But we all know the economic growth in the US is not sustainable, given the trade wars and massive tax cut for corporations that was paid for by huge deficit spending.

When the economy hits the inevitable recession that's now overdue, sports will be one of the very first industries to suffer, as it's one of the easiest places for people to stop spending money.

I'm not saying the article is correct. It may not happen this year. But when the recession does hit, the NHL's salary cap projections are going to be way off.